Approval of Minutes from the 3/7/2000 and 3/21/2000
Faculty Senate Meetings

M. Hanna: Iíd
like to call the meeting to order and deal with the Minutes.† We have two sets of Minutes; for the meeting
of March 7, one of our members was there but was not recorded.† With this amendment to the Minutes of March
7, can we approve both sets of Minutes? [unanimous]

Discussion of General Faculty Meeting

Our first agenda item is to discuss the General Faculty
Meeting on April 12.† An agenda has been
circulated.† Nominations for the elections
will be taken from the floor.† Provost
Daves will have the last half of the meeting to discuss raises and other such issues.

This meeting will be different from previous years in one
way.† We will not acknowledge the deaths
in our community during the meeting; there will be another service.† [Plans are to have this service each year on
Veterans Day.]

Announcements and Progress on Nominations for
Senate Positions

Iíve passed around a rough election slate.† We have a few more slots to fill.† For the Recording Secretary, for example, no
one at all is running.† We have to find
people for this.† Please let me know what
recommendations you have.

Provost Recommendations

The second item relates to our discussion last week
regarding the Provostís search.† I sent
the results of our discussion to the committee and was told that they had
already submitted their list of preferences to the President and so I was not
sure what to do with or recommendations.

I looked over the schedules we had received earlier and
found no indication of a deadline that we had missed.† There isnít any.† And there were even rumors of a fifth
candidate.† So I donít think there is a
deadline we missed.† On this basis, I
decided to send our recommendations directly to the Presidentís Office.

R. Leifer: If
they didnít want our input, why were we asked to interview the candidates?

Now weíll hear from Gary [Gabriele] about the process
through which the new schedule will be administered and monitored.

G. Gabriele: Iíve
sent around a memo
describing the process and the charge for the committee.†

R. Leifer: Have
your meetings gone smoothly so far?† Have
any problems already become apparent?

G. Gabriele: Very
smoothly.† Our meetings have gone well
and weíve gotten everything done that we planned.† We asked Professor Raghavachari from DSES to
sit in the meeting, observe and make suggestions about value that can be added
from his disciplinary perspective in particular.

N. Rolnick: Did
the distribution between M-Th and T-F options work out?

G. Gabriele: Well
enough. The distribution is pretty good, but we didnít enforce it strictly this
Fall.† We elected to enforce it gradually
over the next few semesters.

K. Craig: The
communication between Gary and the FSCC is good- free flowing, substantive.

K. Fortun: Who
does a faculty member go to if they want to express concerns or inputs about
the schedule?

K. Craig: Thatís
a good question.† Iím not sure.

G. Gabriele: I
would rather not specify any one line of authority.† A faculty member can go to the FSCC, to the
Provostís office or to his or her own scheduler or chair.† Hopefully all these processes are open.

M. Hanna: I would
like to accept a motion to endorse this description of the operating procedures
of the Scheduling Committee and the description of the general principles that
guide the scheduling.† In favor: 8,
opposed: 1, abstentions: 1.

Discussion of Evaluation of Administrators

The discussion was sparked by discussion with colleagues in
H&SS who pointed out that this once was a regular Institute practice.† Administrators were evaluated by the faculty
approximately every 3-5 years.

Members of the Executive Committee decided that they do
support the evaluation of administrators and that they should appoint a
committee to work out how.† R. Parsons
will chair that committee.

R. Parsons: This
is a mechanism to promote communication between faculty and administrators.

R. Leifer:† In the past, an instrument was developed to
do this.† It should be in the archives
somewhere.

N. Rolnick: What
is the purpose of these reviews?† Iím
always hesitant to get involved in something that isnít going to have an
effect.

M. Hanna: One of
the tasks of the Committee is to determine what the instrument looks like;
another looks at what will be done with the information and another regards the
frequency of the evaluations.

The intent is communication.†
The information, I would think, would be communicated to the person
evaluated and to that personís supervisor.†
The evaluations would not be made public.

N. Rolnick: In
evaluating my staff, the progress year-to-year is important.† Thatís the most important thing to watch- if
the point is not to weed out the bad, but to help people do their jobs better.

A. Desrochers:
Thatís a very unique way of evaluating people.†
It isnít how it happens in Engineering.†
Weíre tallied up according to teaching evaluations and how much money
weíve brought it.† I do think the
evaluation of administrators is informative.†
In the past, the facts painted a very clear picture.† Some very positive, some not.† Once chair had been in place almost nineteen
years and everyone said he was wonderful.†
We need to learn from that guy.†
The comments on another chair were that he was never around.

P. Quinn: Is
there a process in place now that doesnít involve the Senate, for faculty
evaluation of administrators?† I asked
the question not to oppose the suggestion that we evaluate administrators.† Iím asking if there is anything already going
on that the Senate can contribute to.

M. Hanna: I know
that we had a chair for seven years, who was never evaluated, which has nothing
to do with whether he or she was doing a good job.

P. Quinn: Six
years ago, faculty did have an opportunity to evaluate the Dean of
Architecture.

J. McLaughlin:
There was an evaluation of the Dean and Chairs of the School of Science
in the last few years, handled by an outside firm in the early 1990s.

N. Rolnick: As
chair, Iíve never been evaluated.† I do
think the Dean of H&SS was evaluated, a long time ago, sometime during the
early 1980s.

S. Anderson-Gold:
I think there has been a real change in the organizational model and culture
here.† Very rapidly, it has become very
top-down with little input from faculty.†
There are other models.

A. Desrochers:
Perhaps we could build on the kind of evaluations of faculty that Neil
described.† Perhaps they should be
standardized across the Schools.† Faculty
should be asked if they accomplished what they wanted to accomplish.† And if not, why not?† Was it because they didnít have the resources
they needed?† We should know what kind of
resources people need to do well.

R. Diwan: I think
people have negative impressions of evaluating administrators because in the
past, they mostly received a grade of D or F.†
But I think the administrators can come to appreciate the information
that an evaluation produces.

P. Quinn: I think
few people would disagree with the argument that administrators would benefit
from being evaluated.† The question
regards how the Senate can contribute to the process and its continuance across
time.

N. Rolnick: Is
there a current procedure for evaluations from the top that faculty evaluations
should be in synch with?

G. Gabriele:
Chairs are about to be evaluated, as are people in the Provostís office.† If faculty evaluations of administrators
could be done alongside faculty evaluations, at the end of the Fall semester,
then the faculty evaluations could be fed into the round of evaluations in the Spring.

K. Fortun: What
information will faculty be given about the administrators
they are evaluating?

P. Quinn:† Two differentiations are important here.† Between what is public and what is
political.† And between what is
confidential and what is secret.

M. Hanna: Is
there consensus that we should proceed with this? [Yes].† Communicate with Bob [Parsons] any
recommendations you have.

New Business

I need to bring up some new business.† At the General Faculty meeting, Doyle [Daves]
has agreed to discuss budgeting.† There
is an article in the most recent Review that raises questions that deserve
discussion.† The article says that the
Institute will go to a performance-based budget model in fiscal year 2001-2002
and that fiscal year 2000-2001 will serve as a transition period.† The upcoming budget, 2000-2001 will exclude
incentives.† And faculty positions that
become vacant will revert to the Provost, effective immediately.

J. McLaughlin:
Gary [Gabriele], can you elaborate?

G. Gabriele: This
came up in the Deansí meeting on Monday.†
They know how to go forward.† They
donít see it as a big problem.

P. Quinn: Are you
saying the article is premature and inaccurate?

G. Gabriele: No,
but there can be inaccurate interpretations.

M. Hanna: The
article is a statement of fact.† Either
it is so or it isnít.

S. Anderson-Gold:
Can you read the passage?

M. Hanna: I
quote: ďIn addition, faculty positions that become vacant will revert to the
provost, beginning immediately, in order to give the Institute maximum
flexibility to allocate resources to strategic purposes as identified in the
Rensselaer Plan and resultant performance plans.

P. Quinn: It
sounds even more ominous now; out of context it canít but be heard as
draconian.

S. Anderson-Gold:
It sounds like internal reallocation.

P. Quinn: Thatís
a nice way to put it.† Robbing Peter to
pay Paul.

M. Hanna: We need
clarification, about hires as well as about incentives.